I have a shopping cart cover thing my sister gave me because she never used it. We just started putting Giles in the shopping cart (8 months) and I have used it twice. It is nice because I an attach toys to it and then he can't drop them, and of course he is not directly exposed to the "germy" cart, but I'm not sure if I would pay full price for one. Definitely I wouldn't put it on the necessity list.